d*U*d*d*L*e*B*u*G's DOOdLebOOk

This is probably a daft idea because i've got too much going on already, but i've been inspired, entertained and sometimes dumbstruck looking through the sketchbooks over the past few days.... so i just had to join in...

I'm kicking off with a bunch of exisitng stuff just to show where i'm coming from and get the ball rolling... it's a selection of the type of gumpf i've been producing in the last few years.

old sketch in biro (A3)

Old games stuff...

Monkey Girl

And some other quick-ish gumpf...

Most of this is done in pencil or biro on paper. I've been working on some very different stuff since i started working at Eurocom last december, and now do a lot of stuff direct into Photoshop (in colour and b&W). I'll post more digital sketches this week. I'm also 'learning' Painter after a few years with Photoshop, so i'll be doing lots of experiments over the next few months which i'll post too!

And now i'll just have to make sure i update as often as i can! More *new* stuff to come very soon....

Very Nice Mr Jonny, sir.
Refreshing style, made me smile, even giggle at the one with the cherry bakewell tarts.
I love this one! You actually write like that!? i thought it was for show.
Who would you say are your influences?

Blimey! I posted these yesterday thinking i'd hopefully get a few replies, but i didn't expect twenty! Thanks! And i've got five stars!? Woohoo! I'm reeeeally chuffed about that! As i said yesterday, i was inspired to start a thread by some of the incredible work in this section. I'd mention names but i wouldn't know where to stop...

Hopefully, having this 'doodlebook' will inspire me to do lots of sketching on a daily basis (i'm also gonna start a proper-paper-non-digital-pencil-on-paper sketchbook which i've not really had since i was a high school art teacher before i started working in games! Very slack!). It'll be a mix of pencil and digital... sketches and colour.

I do draw every day because it's my job. But i wanna try and draw something of my own every day too. Which i'll post here.

Nutter: First on the thread? A big thanks for kicking it off for me!

strych9ine: Cheers! And congratulations on the organisation of the 'Last Man Standing'. It's a great activity and it'd have been fun to take part... maybe next time...

Badger: Hi BAdger! Thanks! And yup... my handwriting is actually like that. Influences are all over the place... Someone asked me the same thing on CGtalk in the psectacular challenge and this is what i said (prepare for waffle!): A short list of influences in vague order from childhood onwards (almost an autobiography!) would include Eric Carle, Maurice Sendak, Dr.Seuss, The Magic Roundabout, Beano, Dandy, The Muppets, Terry Gilliam, Asterix, Wacky Races, HKPhooey, Trapdoor, 2000AD, Tim Burton, Jeunet et Caro, Vaughn Bode, Norman Rockwell, Arthur Rackham, Edmund Dulac, W.Heath Robinson, Pixar.

young paddy1: Thankyou! And from another artist from the misty arse end town in the cold wet hills of the Peak District. Aly says you live in Buxton... i hope you're enjoying this morning's fog and drizzle? Looking forward to another long Buxton winter?? I'll post some 'King of Space' stuff next week. I need to do more on that idea anyway!

Royal_T: Thanks!

Pixeldragoon: Thankyou... and, yup, i will drop by your book! I realise there's a lot of artists who've posted here who also have sketchbook threads, so i'm gonna try and drop by everybody's! It seems like a great community in the Sketchbook section!

Art_Addict: Cheers! I was really chuffed with the ape on the tower. It was actually for a Looney Tunes game and didn't get used... which was a shame...

mentler: haha... are you sure??

Ive: haha... I've got to the point now where i rarely ink my blue pencil work. I generally just make it greyscale, mess around with the levels in PS and work into that if i want a black line. But i do love Col-erase blue pencil. It's very 'clean'. Although i'm planning on using a lot more soft graphite in my sketchbook.

flaptraps: Thanks! The Gladiator was for the UK vs Washington TD a little while back (the Rome 3000 topic). It was a bit of a departure but i was happy with it, especially as it was done in my lunch hours at work. And i absolutely love you recent TD entry. The girl with the revolvers is just amazing! It was my favourite piece of the whole second round. And it'd be on my desktop, if i didn't have a picture of my daughter in permanent residence!

That fat kid: Thankyou! And i've got Five starts this morning! Fantastic!

dariocoelho: Thanks!

masterpug: haha... that image was for a friend who was planning a short film. I don't think he's actually used them...

Madfishmonger: Lol... I like the term 'bouncy'! Hopefully, not everything i post here will be too bouncy. I'm gonna try and vary the subject matter and style in my sketchbook. I'm hoping it'll be more of a learning process than anything.

Bojee, runelore: Thanks!

AndrewLey: Cheers Andrew. BTW I love your sketches. So much energy and you're always pushing POV and perspective. You should get a badge for spotting the Life of Brian graffiti! Not too many people did! I couldn't resist when i saw the brief for the TD. I actually started a different piece with a modified 30s Bugatti. I'll get it on my webspace and post it here this weekend!

ReAkshun: Cheers!

hurricane: Thanks! Most of this is old stuff from my site just to kick off my sketchbook. And i've posted some of this stuff before. The Pig and the Gladiator have been posted on conceptart for a TD and a COW, for instance. I'm hoping to post some fresher stuff very soon. There's a ton of the games stuff i've done in my day job that i'd love to post, but it's obviously all under NDA. It is very very different to most of the stuff here. Much more realistic, although i think i struggle to completely do away with the cartoon elemnts.

loomer, Azrael, Groover McNab: Thanks!!

Phew. Sorry for the waffle!! I'm dead flattered to get five stars overnight. It's made my week. ANd i've had a tough week with bottle feeding at 3am every night and lots to do at work. So thanks! And i'm gonna try and drop by people's sketchbooks over the next day or two... gotta get some work done now though after spending far too long writing that reply!

And a few people said they liked the Gladiator, so here's a step-by-step! I did this for my site, but haven't got around to doing the dreamweaver stuff, so here you go:

The sketch took about fifteen minutes. I don't always work in blue pencil but i think they're great for roughing stuff out. I usually work in blue col-erase on Goldline Marker PAds.

The next step was to scan the image into Photoshop 7 and do some tweaks on the drawing. I used to do subsequent sketches with an animator's lightbox, until i got the pencil drawing 'just right', but i've changed my process a little to give myself more freedom and be a little less dependant on the pencil sketch.

Next stage is to make the drawing a layer and set blend mode to 'multiply' and then block in some base colours. For those who don't know, using 'Multiply' as a layer blend mode makes everything white transparent and everything black opaque, so you can paint beneath your drawing with only the lines visible.

Then i start working quickly on the colour. I generally use a 6"x8" wacom, although we've just got a couple of Cintiqs at work. All these quick marks at this stage will gradually be covered up, but they'll form a nice base to the image and will subtly show through subsequent marks and give some nice depth to the image. even on a quick concept like this, i like to build up layers of colour. I decided to switch the head direction. I couldn't get it to look natural the other way with him talking on the phone. He looked like he was staring and bemused by the phone, rather than talking.

Add in the graffiti. I knew i wanted graffiti, but wasn't sure what. Then i caught myself singing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' one day, and remembered the graffiti scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian!! So in went 'Romanes Eunt Domus'. I actually did a screen grab from the movie one night and copied the graffiti very closely!! It's supposed to mean 'Romans go Home'... but it's the wrong spelling and means something like 'People who are Roman go to the house'... or something..?? I loved this bit of the movie as a kid.

A couple of major tweaks. One of the other sketches i did for this contest was a girl with an afro on roller skates. Mainly because i've got some strange 'thing' about girls on roller skates... *sigh*... i i attribute this 'thing' to growing up in the 70s and watching the girls on my street going up and down the road on their roller skates. I don't have a 'thing' about big hairy men on roller skates, but i thought it'd be a nice touch.

This bit is all good fun. I really started adding in the details... telephone, plugs, cigarette... These were on a seperate layer so i could play around a bit. Some details went into the image, and came straight back out again, for instance. I was still aiming to keep the layer count down. In this image there were about 7 layers i think. From the back to front, there were: Base colours, the linework (i painted over the lines and used them as a guide), the main colour layer, the Graffiti, A detail layer, another detail layer and the shadows layer. I used to go mad with layers, but it just slows everything down and gets confusing, so i'm trying to limit them a bit to see how it affects my work. I'll create layers and merge down as i go along, but i'm aiming to keep away from 100 layer images! I also added more 'flex' to the bench because he's a chunky fella... thanks to Matt Dixon for the suggestion... who oddly enough normally works on just one layer. Now that is odd.

The final stage is the tidying up and adding in all the detail. This was a laugh. There's the 'Access All Areas' pass, a burger and fries, grenades etc. I just had some fun and then said 'Finished'. This, as i said, was a fairly quick image i worked on over a week of lunchtimes. So five to six hours would probably be a good guess. By the next day there was a bunch of stuff i'd change or do different, but i've never been one for going back to an image. I'll just start a new picture and try and get it right next time...

I'll post the sketches for the other idea i had for this TD tonight or tomorrow.

I've just loked at them and quite like 'em, so i might even finish the image off sometime...

The 'space frogs' (haha... good description!) were just a favour for a friend at Warthog who wanted to do a short film in his spare time. I'm not sure where he's at with it, or if he's even doing it, because he left the company. And then i moved company too, so we've been out of touch

I'll have to try and mail him and see whether he's modelled 'em up. Or started animating even...